Table Of ContentMastering Digital
Nude Photography:
The Serious Photographer’s
Guide to High-Quality Digital
Nude Photography
Roderick Macdonald
A DIVISION OF COURSE TECHNOLOGY
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Dedication
For Pippa, my lioness on the prowl, without whose ceaseless, inexhaustible, and loving attention and care this
book wouldn't exist.
Acknowledgments
As always, thanks go first to the models, without whose patience, good humour, and endurance there would be no
photography to write about: Akemi, Al, Alex, AlexFox, Amber, Angela, Ania, Aurora, Aylith, Belladonna, Bobbie,
Carol, Cathy, Catya, Caz, CheekyLee, ChrissieB, Claire, ClaireV, Claudia, Eden, Eleanor-Jade, Eliz, Emily, Emmy,
Emzy, Gemma Jansensswillen and Warner, Geo, Ginga Pixy, Heather, Honesty, Ilonka, Imogen1979, Jackie,
JadedRed, Janine, Jessie, JoanneR, Kate, Kay, Kerry, Lala, Lexi, Lolly, LucyS, Martha, Naomi, NatalieK, Neku, Ness
and Andy, Nichola, Opal, Phillippa, Pimperella, Rachel, RedLilly, Rose, Rosie, Ruby Blues, Saffy, Sarah Powell,
SarahW, Seren, Sheena, Sherie, Sophia, Tabitha, Tess, Tia, Tomoko, Toria and Trevor, Vahit, Wicilha, Wil, Xidia,
Yvonne, Zoey.
Thanks also to the photographers whose image thumbnails are included in the screengrab of Imogen1979’s portfolio
for permission to reproduce their work: Paul Alexander (www.Alternative-Images.com), Shaun Allatt (SJN
Photography), Doug Faircloth, Richard Harrison (www.digitalmood.co.uk), Dave Heels, Gregory Mason,
RoxeneBob, and Steve Sanford.
Phil at Nomads in Cambridge was, as ever, unfailingly generous in lending pieces from his stunning hoard of ethnic
jewelry, matched only by Thomas at Jackie’s Jewellery on Cambridge market. John Rothwell made and adapted some
beautiful pieces of body jewelry for me. And Dixie’s Vintage Clothing, also on Cambridge market, came up with the
goods, as always.
Many coffee shops, but particularly the Black Cat, Copper Kettle, and Café Brazil in Cambridge, and Café Montmartre
in Salisbury, put up with me and my laptop. Special thanks to Nancy and the crew at the Black Cat.
In addition to unstinting moral support, Peter Chapman made detailed comments on various drafts, challenging and
clarifying my conception of audience, in ways I hope have been beneficial to the writing of the book as a whole. Mike
Nott’s sustained support and friendship were as invaluable as ever. Rick Martin contributed a number of valuable sug-
gestions for the content and structure of the book, and continued to be a tough and insightful critic of both words
and pictures. I’m also grateful to Rick for his help in defining different levels of modeling. Nigel Shevill gave me the
benefit of his experience and reflections on many aspects of working with models and planning a shoot, and Chris
Oakley set out, with a succinctness which had been eluding me for days, the main elements of photographic creativ-
ity. Glen Jobson calibrated and fine-tuned the color settings of my Apple system to run better than ever, and gave me
the clearest imaginable explanations of the whole black art of color profiling. Any failure to use, to the full, the sound
advice and valuable information provided by these friends and colleagues must be laid entirely at my door.
Megan Belanger, Acquisitions Editor extraordinaire at Thomson, dealt with my intransigent queries with tact,
patience, good humour, and common sense. Project Editor Tonya Cupp dealt with and helped shape the text with
intelligence, wit, and flair. Ian Farrell, Technical Editor, provided invaluable technical oversight and a sharp eye for
detail. Design Technician Jill Flores has made the book look beautiful.
Paula Rosales and Art Schmehling from GretagMacBeth provided valuable information.
The Cambridge and Norwich Munches provided many wonderful models for my photography and, as always, gave me
much to reflect on concerning our often ambiguous and mysterious relationships with our own sexuality, bodies, and
desires—relationships which, I believe, underpin (consciously or not) the work of every photographer of the nude.
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii
Equipment and Software . . . . . . . . . . 2
1
Sixteen Bits of RAW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Understanding Camera Raw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Getting Flexibility from 16 Bit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Shooting with Camera Raw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Camera Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Prints Versus the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Sensors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Lenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Stabilizing the Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Light and Lighting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Wish Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
How Many Cameras?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Computers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Desktop Versus Laptop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Storage and Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
In Place of the Mouse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Printers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Color Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
2
Choosing a Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Finding Your First Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Partners, Friends, Acquaintances, and Strangers . . . . . . . . . 104
Models on the Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Modeling Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Arranging the Shoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Avoiding Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
“Can I Bring a Chaperone?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
On First Contacting a Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Welcoming the Model to the Shoot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Makeup and Other Adornments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
The Human Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Disagreements During the Shoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
3
Shadow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Experimentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Positioning Lights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Backlight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Continuous Light. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Shadowless Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Candles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Attachments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Softboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
On-camera Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Other Attachments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
The Shoot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
4
Planning and Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Places to Shoot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Commercial Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Around the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Home Studio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Moving into the Shoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Shooting Faces and Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Themes and Poses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
vi Contents
Postproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
5
Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Cataloging, Reviewing, Renaming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Making a CD for the Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
The Camera Raw Plug-in: Main Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Setting the Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
The Settings Tabs, Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Adjusting the Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Leaving Camera Raw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
The Settings Tabs, Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Adjusting Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Making Selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Cleaning Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Altering Emphasis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Playing with Filters and Blend Modes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Creating Monochrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
Color Pass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Introduction vii
Introduction
Why do photography of the nude?
The human body is a unique photographic subject. Photography of the nude
can be powerful, controversial, and transgressive, revealing in public spaces
such as galleries, books, and on the Internet a totality of ourselves that is
usually only shown to those with whom we are most intimate. We see
ourselves reflected in images of the naked body. We see in images such as
Figures 1 and 2 human beauty; but we also perceive our transience and
mortality. In viewing these images, with their representations of innocence
and knowingness, we experience both desire and fear, attraction and anxiety,
curiosity and embarrassment, reverence and amusement.
Figure 1 Human beauty.
viii Introduction
Figure 2 The body as
landscape.
Nude photography is now more popular than ever before. Digital photograph-
ic technology combines with the Internet to make it easy for photographers
to create nude images discreetly (without the need to send film out for
processing) and then choose how widely they wish to disseminate them. In
many countries this rapidly growing interest in the nude coincides with, and
derives from, social movements such as gay liberation, which by challenging
laws and taboos around different forms of sexuality also engendered much
broader artistic freedoms.
Who is this book for?
The book is aimed at the intermediate or advanced photographer who’s
looking to improve the quality and range of his or her photography. That
means, typically, that you’re a photographer who has already made a serious
start developing your skills in photography. You’re willing to invest a certain
amount of money, but much more importantly, a considerable amount of
time, developing your art and skills. The book contains ideas and techniques
that will challenge and develop your creativity and encourage you to expand
your boundaries; see Figure 3.
Introduction ix
Figure 3 The body in a
landscape.
The book’s also written on the assumption that you have something to say
about the human body, about beauty, and about photography itself. I don’t
mean that you have a “philosophy of photography” that you can set out in
words. (I envy you if you do!) But if you’re serious enough about photo-
graphy of the nude to have bought this book, then you’ll have a strong
visual imagination and curiosity that impel and shape the images you create,
and a direction (or number of directions) in which you want your work to
develop; see Figure 4.
Figure 4 An unusual view of a
different subject.
